Ninety years on, it is only right to remember a brilliant young man who soon passed away, the Italian mechanical engineer Elio Trenta (Città della Pieve, 1912-1932), who was among the first to devise this important innovation. Although in 1921 the first such device had been invented by Canadian Alfred Horner Munro.

The patent had been granted to Trenta in 1931 by the Corporation - Intellectual Property Office, No. 298415.

The automatic transmission was not used until later, especially in the 1950s in the United States of America. In 1940, the first cars to have a fully automatic transmission were the Oldsmobiles of the historic and oldest US car manufacturer (General Motors Group).

Even before the Second World War, Oldsmobile introduced the first semi-automatic and then fully automatic gearboxes. The system was a four-speed Hydramatic with no clutch. Millions of Oldsmobile cars benefited from this device.